


petals

by devilishdyke



Category: New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: F/F, Hanahaki Disease, Iruma Miu Being Iruma Miu, M/M, Minor Amami Rantaro/Ouma Kokichi, Minor Kirigiri Kyouko/Celestia Ludenberg, One-Sided Attraction, Unrequited Love, celestia and kyouko are shuichi's moms, kaede and sonia are sisters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-14
Updated: 2019-12-14
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:55:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21787876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devilishdyke/pseuds/devilishdyke
Summary: I glow pink in the night in my room. I've been blossoming alone over you. And I hear my heart breaking tonight.
Relationships: Akamatsu Kaede/Iruma Miu
Kudos: 15





	petals

As a young girl, all that Kaede Akamatsu had ever hoped for was to find love.

She’d reached for her sister, Sonia, and exclaimed, “I wanna get married someday!”

Now, she couldn’t seem to pull it off. Boys would flirt with her. Play with her hair. Give her sweet nicknames and kind compliments and pretty flowers and lovely gifts of all kinds.

Then, Sonia would laugh and remind her that’s she’s far too young to marry. She would still say that now, but Kaede fears that it’s because she has never fallen in love before.

She’s had best friends, girls she wanted to stay up all night and giggle with forever, relationships that never lasted. But could she call that love?

Kaede sighed as her best friend, Shuichi, rambled on about how annoying his moms are. She knows he loves them. If only she could feel some kind of love towards someone the same way he does so easily.

Tuning him out to focus on the sounds of her heeled shoes clacking against the ground, she watches her surroundings change ever so slightly with each step. Eventually, Shuichi puts an arm out to stop her from walking straight into a moving car.

He’s as used to this routine as she is. He talks, she tries to listen. 

“Hey, Kaede,” Shuichi says suddenly, breaking the routine.

Kaede hums, watching the cars go by.

“..Have you ever been in love?”

Kaede purses her lips. What should she say? “I like my friends.”

Shuichi shakes his head, and Kaede flushes in embarrassment at her response. No, that was foolish. That’s not the same as love.

“No, I mean, like.. love.”

“I’ve never dated anyone,” Kaede supplies, thinking of all of the kind boys Shuichi had dated in the past.

At this, Shuichi sighs and adjusts his hat. He looks like he wants to say ‘never mind,’ but his mothers always scold him for that.

Kaede frowns. He doesn’t speak again until they’ve crossed the street and arrive at Kaede’s house. “I think Iruma-chan likes you.”

Kaede approaches her front door where Sonia is most likely waiting to welcome her home. “I like her, too.”

Shuichi’s yellow eyes that remind Kaede of a cat’s widen, “Woah! You do?”

Kaede smiles and shrugs, because yeah, she does like Iruma. Obviously. They’re friends. Is that so bizarre?

Shuichi accepts that answer and hugs Kaede goodbye, leaving while muttering about how his moms will surely scold him for being late to dinner.

The moment she turns around, Kaede sees her sister waiting by the door with her arms held out, expecting the same hug she’d given Shuichi.

The next day, Kaede overhears Shuichi asking Iruma if she’s okay. She has bandages wrapped around her throat that hadn’t been there the day before.

“Hey, what’s up?” Kaede asks, sitting casually on the edge of Iruma’s desk. Iruma, as always, gets flustered.

“I can see up your skirt when you sit like that!” she shrieks, but her voice lacks its usual liveliness. Shuichi shrugs at Kaede’s concerned look.

Iruma notices the silent conversation they share. “I have a really bad cough. Thought I would look really fucking cool with some bandages around my neck instead of the same boring choker.” Shuichi, taking after one of his moms, a famous detective, opens his mouth to pry before Iruma immediately covers it with her hand. “It’s nothing!”

"Iruma-chan," Kaede starts, before Iruma bashfully reminds her that because they're friends, she can call her Miu. "Miu." Kaede corrects herself. She smiles at the way that the other girl's name sounds coming from her mouth. It's really pretty; though she'd never tell Miu that, out of the fear that she might get too embarrassed.

Kaede absentmindedly twirls a couple pieces of her blonde hair around her index finger, the fingers of her right hand tapping on the desk in a repeating motion which seems to grab and hold Shuichi's attention while Miu simply stares straight up into Kaede's eyes. "We're worried about you.. I'M worried about you. If you don't want to tell us what's wrong, it's okay, but just know that I'm always here for you."

Miu begins to sputter at this, a light pink dancing across her cheeks. She gently pushed Kaede off her desk and hid her face in her hands, muttering nonsense to herself. Kaede thought it was kinda cute. What a weird girl Miu was.

Later, Shuichi repeated again what he'd told Kaede before - "I think Iruma-chan likes you." This time, Kaede nodded with the image of the blushing Miu still on her mind. "I think so, too. But I don't mind."

Shuichi hit her on the arm lightly, smirking like how their friend Kokichi always did whenever he was up to no good. "How do you feel about her?"

Kaede felt her face heat up a bit, but still she answered honestly. "I don't know. She's my friend." And this was the truth. She wasn't sure that she felt anything special towards Miu, though Shuichi would obviously take this as her admitting her secret love for the unknowing girl in their class. He smiled, most definitely interpreting her words incorrectly, but Kaede didn't see any reason to correct him.

For a moment, she wondered if she should ask what Shuichi and Miu had been talking about before she'd arrived. But by the time she'd opened her mouth to begin the question, Shuichi was already leaving, waving goodbye to her as he headed home. Again, Sonia welcomed Kaede home with her arms wide open for a hug. Kaede dropped her bag off by the door and walked up the stairs without offering her sister a single glance.

Kaede ignored each shout of her name and locked her bedroom door. Though Sonia was rarely around, she always tried to become close with Kaede and most days, the latter was too exhausted to go along with it. "We'll have dinner together. I'll see her then," Kaede reminded herself, trying to distract from the guilt she felt when Sonia finally gave up calling her name. She crashed onto her bed with a sigh. Her plum-colored eyes slowly scanned her bedroom, finally landing on her phone which had been glowing on and off for what seemed like forever.

Expecting a message from Shuichi, Kaede was surprised to see countless notifications from Rantaro and his boyfriend, Kokichi. They seemed to be sharing a conversation between the two of them exclusively, so she simply dropped the phone back onto her bed and shut her eyes. She wasn't familiar with taking naps, but desperately needed one today.

Although she couldn't place what had caused it, Kaede felt a wave of disappointment pass over her while thinking back on the events of her day.  
Silently, she hoped that tomorrow would be a better day.


End file.
